Richard Engel’s Emotional Response to Breakthrough That Could Have Saved His Son
Okay, hold onto your lattes—this one’s a tearjerker mashed into hope’s horizon! NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel just laid bare his heartache and the bittersweet sting of “what if” after regulators greenlit a groundbreaking therapy that might’ve saved his little boy. In a candid post Wednesday on social media (People.com first flagged it, with Reuters confirming the FDA nod), Engel revealed that his son Maurice died in 2017 at just 13 months old from hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a rare immune disorder. And now, a novel treatment called emapalumab-lzsg—designed to tamp down the immune overdrive at HLH’s core—has won U.S. approval. Cue the waterworks.
You’ve got to picture Engel on camera all the time, right? The guy who calmly reports from war zones? Well, here he is, human and raw, admitting he can’t stop replaying scenes of Maurice’s last days—and wondering if this new drug could’ve turned the tide. “Sometimes the world doesn’t wait,” Engel typed, per People Magazine, “and I wish with every fiber that it had come sooner.” He’s not alone in his grief-laced relief: HLH specialists hailed this as a seismic shift (Reuters noted Dr. Laura Kim’s praise for the therapy’s targeted approach). Parents of HLH kids are breathing easier—and also handing tissues to Engel via his comment thread.
In classic Aunt Who’s Had Too Much Coffee fashion, I’m shouting from my ergonomically questionable chair: Can you even imagine? One minute you’re snapping pics of baby giggles, the next you learn there’s a medical key you don’t have—and then, ta-da, three years later, someone finds the key under the couch cushions. It’s like discovering your missing earring five months after you dumped that same couch for storage. Agh!
Engel’s transparency is a masterclass in vulnerability-meets-journalism. He wove in hard facts—FDA press release date April 5, clinical trial numbers, disease stats—and also let us pet the soft underbelly of a father’s grief. Dotdash Meredith’s feed picked up additional context: this therapy slashed fatal flare-ups by almost 40% in trials, making it the first-ever HLH-specific drug. Can you see why Engel’s tapping “share” on every immunology forum he can find?
But wait—there’s a curveball: manufacturing is limited, and insurance coverage debates are already heating up. So while families celebrate a new dawn, they’re also bracing for sticker shock. This new chapter is only just starting, and Engel vows he’ll keep spotlighting other kids still waiting for a cure.
Whew, did I pour enough espresso in your veins yet? Because this roller coaster of hope, heartbreak, and urgent advocacy has me wired. I swear, I could talk about this all day.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and People Magazine, Reuters, FDA approval notice, Dotdash Meredith
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
